Potato shaped planet discovered | TechTree.com

Potato shaped planet discovered

Astronomers discovered a potato shaped planet in another galaxy that is being pulled into the Sun.

 

Astronomers had long suspected that the potato planet, officially known as WASP-103b, was elongated in shape due to the massive gravitational force exerted from its host sun.

Not all planets are spheres. Clearly planets, just like humans, come in all shapes and sizes. 

There's a reason planets are circular. As a planet starts forming, their gravitational force starts pulling everything it finds towards the center of its body. 

As NASA explains, "Gravity pulls from the center to the edges like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. This makes the overall shape of a planet a sphere, which is a three-dimensional circle." 

The potato planet has 1.5 times more mass and is twice the radius of Jupiter. The Sun that is elongating it is much larger than the Sun in our solar system.

The potato planet is so close to its Sun that it only takes 22 hours to orbit it, whereas Earth takes a year to orbit the Sun. 

Even the other planets in our solar system take at least a few months (or several years) to make one complete revolution around the Sun.

James Fradgley, chairman of astronomy for the Bournemouth Natural Science Museum, had the following to say: 

“It had been expected that it would be shaped like a rugby ball because of its so close to the star so the gravitational pull stretches the planet.”

“It is also slowly being sucked into its star and will only take a few million years to be swallowed up.”

The tidal force that stretches out the exoplanet (into an oval shape) works just like tidal waves on Earth.

The European Space Agency (ESA) that found the exoplanet stated that, “Understanding how mass is distributed can reveal details on the internal structure of the planet.”

The ESA, alongside the recently launched James Webb telescope, will continue observing WASP-103b to learn more about elongated planets. 


TAGS: Astronomers, planets

 
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